


Marcella

by ama



Series: The Home Front [3]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Conversations, Courtship, Cross-Generational Friendship, F/M, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 17:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2396996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things Bill really missed about Philadelphia, and Mrs. Baldovini embodies most of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marcella

Bill’s crutch dug uncomfortably into his armpit, but he ignored it as he knocked smartly on the door and then straightened his tie for good measure. He wished, fleetingly, that he could check himself in the mirror again just to be safe. This was the first time he had worn his dress uniform with every single award attached—Silver Star and Purple Heart and victory medal and all the rest of it. His ma had cried, seeing him all done up like that, and even his sister Maria had admitted he looked damn spiffy. Bill thought he would look better with two bloused trouser legs rather than one, but hey, he did his best.

He was about to knock again when he heard a sharp _“Entra!”_ come through the door, and he obeyed posthaste.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Baldovini,” he said with a flash of his most charming grin. Just as he had expected the moment he heard her voice, there was no one else in the apartment—only old Mrs. Baldovini sitting in her chair by the window, knitting needles and a fluff square of white yarn clutched in her arthritic hands. She looked up at his entrance and gave a craggy smile.

“Well if it isn’t little Bill Guarnere back from war at last. You forgot something.”

Bill let out a bark of laughter and walked over to the seat across from the old woman. It was a wooden chair with a thin pillow over the seat, and not nearly as comfortable as Mrs. Baldovini’s, a squat little armchair with doilies on the arm and back. But she had bad knees as well as bad hands, so she spent most of her time sitting in that chair. Of course she got the best.

“Ya know, Mrs. B, the krauts were getting too scared of me—every time they saw me they’d just run away screaming! So I figured I oughta give ’em a fighting chance. ’Course, I only offered one big toe and they decided they wanted the whole damn leg, but that’s Germans for ya.”

The old woman cackled, and Bill smiled to himself. He hadn’t realized, until he got back, how much he missed the _sounds_ of South Philly. Doors slamming, feet stomping up and down staircases, faint shouts as people talked window-to-window with neighbors in other buildings, snatches of conversations in Polish and Yiddish and Italian all tweaked by that distinct accent, and periodic bursts of loud, unrepentant laughter. _Nobody_ laughed like Philly people, and that was the God’s honest truth. He loved it.

“Better that then your life, God forbid, so welcome back.” She finished knitting a row, and then leaned over to tap his knee fondly with her knitting needle. “You look very handsome in the uniform.”

“Well thanks, Mrs. B,” he said, cocking his cap just a little more, and she leaned back with a sly grin.

“Although it’s useless, because she’s not here.”

“Who?” he asked innocently, and the old woman chuckled to herself as she continued her knitting.

“If you don’t remember, I won’t remind you. I’ll just tell my granddaughter some soldier came over here, looking very handsome, but after all there are lots of handsome boys in this city so why bother?”

Bill looked at the ground between them and felt his face soften, his smile turn gentle around the edges. He glanced up at Mrs. Baldovini and saw her watching him, her dark eyes sharp as a tack and all-knowing. Her granddaughter had the same eyes, and for a moment Bill amused himself by picturing Mrs. Baldovini young, living in Italy—some pretty brunette bombshell with waves of dark hair falling down to her waist and eyes that made a mockery of all the poor country bumpkins goggling at her. Miles away from the shrunken old woman sitting placidly in a Philadelphia sitting room, although her hair, snow white beneath a blue kerchief, was still long and wavy, and her eyes were still sharp. The city fit her better than the country, he thought, now and probably then, too. Frances, she could thrive in the heart of a city or in deserted country or anywhere in between, but Bill was a city boy through and through, and he recognized that same spirit in Mrs. B. That was probably one of the reasons they got along so well.

If Mrs. Baldovini were a man, and born a couple of decades later, she would’ve made a hell of a paratrooper.

“How’s Frannie doing?”

“She got a job. She’s a good girl, Frances, getting a job and helping her mother—and buying war bonds. So many war bonds, she bought, and brought them around and made all her little friends by them too. I say to her, Frances, that silly little boy from down the block isn’t going to know how many war bonds you bought, save your money and buy something useful. And she says to me, you know what she says to me? She says ‘Nonna, listen—war bonds help to save soldiers. So if I buy enough, with luck one of them will come home and buy _me_ a wedding ring. Now, do you want to buy one or no?’”

She laughed her full-bodied, Philly laugh again, and Bill chuckled too, while he struggled to keep the blush from appearing on his cheeks. Wild Bill Guarnere, blushing like a school kid—he could think of a few hundred men who would pay good money to see it, but he couldn’t help but feel a little bit sheepish when he thought of the gold ring sitting in a box under his bed. It had cost him $150; he had spent his first four paychecks as a paratrooper on it, except for the $10 a month he saved for his mother, plus a spare dollar here and there to get drunk with the rest of the NCOs. He had thought about giving it to her on his last furlough before getting shipped out, but decided against it. It felt like bad luck, almost, like he thought he wouldn’t have the chance ever again. Nonsense, he had decided, with the bluster of a soldier who had never yet seen war. He’d come home flush with victory and give her the ring and sweep her off her feet. Easy as that.

Bill cleared his throat and sat back in his chair.

“What do you think, Mrs. B? Think she’ll be glad to see me?”

“Of course, of course,” she said with no concern at all, waving her hand. Her smile turned sly again, but her eyes were fixed on her knitting as she wielded her needle like a bayonet. “She’ll be happy to know she bought enough war bonds to bring home at least one soldier.”

“One’s the only one she needs, ain’t it?” he asked with a wink, and then the old woman gave a very eloquent Italian shrug that nearly made his heart stop. He knew that shrug—it almost never meant well. Did Frances have another guy? Hell, he couldn’t _really_ blame her for it if she’d had a little fling with some 4F bastard—he hadn’t been exactly faithful to her on the other side of the ocean, either—but holy Jesus, if he found out she’d been waiting for another soldier to come home this whole time, he’d find the son of a bitch and kill him. Shoot him dead, right in the heart. He didn’t have his M1 anymore, which was a pity, but he had plenty of Lugers to choose from.

“I wonder. I wonder. You see, Bill, you are a very likable boy—but there is a problem. Young women like my granddaughter like you, and old women like me like you. So do young men and old men, for that matter. They look at you, they say ‘There’s a tough man, charming, a little bit wild. Good man to know, good friend to have.’ But mothers and fathers, _they_ say ‘No, no, that boy’s a little too wild, a little too charming. No good around my daughter—that’s the kind of boy who gets her into trouble.’ So I wonder if Frances might have to go through a few different soldiers to find one which my son and his wife would like for a son-in-law. It is possible, too, that they worry and she worries about a man with only one leg, and if he could support a wife and children. Maybe yes, maybe no.” There was a heavy pause, and then she flicked her hand and shrugged again. “Bah, maybe I underestimate my granddaughter. She has a good thick head on her shoulders and a smart tongue—that, she gets from me.”

“No doubt about that,” Bill mumbled distractedly.

He was staring out the window without really seeing it, a slight frown on his face as he mulled over her words. To be frank, they were nothing he hadn’t thought about before. Army hospitals—worse than hell. If you wanted a man to consider all his flaws in succession, and worry them to death, you stuck him in an army hospital. Luckily Bill was good at shoving them away once he was back on his feet (foot), and he was dead set on marrying Frances if she would have him. Hearing his locked-away fears echoed now, by one of her most beloved relatives, though, was an unexpected stumbling block.

Then he looked at Mrs. Baldovini, whose hands had stilled and whose eyes were on him, and a brave fire kindled in his heart. There was a challenge in her eyes, sure as daylight. This was her battle plan; toss out a few worries like grenades to smoke him out, assess his firepower. Would he retreat, exposing weakness? Or face her head-on?

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs, meeting her dark eyes with calm seriousness.

“I care about Frannie,” he said quietly. “She’s a hell of a girl, and I swear to God I’d do right by her. I admire her father, I respect her ma—and honestly, Mrs. B, you’re maybe my third-favorite woman on this earth after Frannie and my own mother.”

“That’s a lie,” she said with a low croaking laugh as he fingers danced around the yarn. “I may be old, little Bill, but I remember when you and your friends ran right past me on the street and shouted things and called me a witch!”

“Yeah, while you shook bunches of oregano at us and muttered spells in Italian,” Bill countered, a bit relieved that they were straying back away from serious topics. “My point is, I’m not about to marry Frances and sit around on my butt all day hoping a pile of gold falls into our laps, or go around hopping after other girls. I know your family; they’re all good, honest, hard-working people with a bit of fight in ’em, and that’s the kind of man I want to be.”

She glanced up at him briefly, and nodded to herself.

“You’ve changed, Bill. War changed you. For the better, I think.” There was silence except for the click of her needles. “And let’s hope Frances thinks so too, eh? _Buona fortuna_.”

Bill smiled to himself, and then jumped at the sound of footsteps clattering down the hall, accompanied by loud voices. He recognized Frannie’s, and her three brothers all chattering away, and her father scolding them. Hurriedly he straightened his tie and unstraightened his cap, and hastened to get his crutches in order and stand just as the door opened. He plastered a cocky grin on his face and tried to ignore the sound of Mrs. Baldovini’s loud Philly cackle.


End file.
